Evangelical Church of Augustan Confession in Romania

The Evangelical Church A. B. in Romania is an Evangelical Lutheran Church of Diaspora now only about 13,300 members (as of 2010), in Transylvania ( see Transylvanian Saxons ) and the Romanian capital comprises mainly the German Evangelical. The bishop 's seat is Sibiu. Since November 27, 2010 Reinhart Guib is bishop of the Evangelical Church A. B. in Romania. Proclamation language is German. A. B. is used here as an abbreviation for " Augsburg Confession ".

History

Its origins date back to the 12th century. First, the Saxons were Catholic, but attended from 1546 through the work of John Honterus the Reformation. Honterus had already written in 1543 the so-called Reformation booklet for Kronstadt and the Burzenland. The first church was in the proclaimed after the new faith was the Black Church in Brasov. 1553 was used with Paul Wiener of the first Protestant bishop. 1572 led the church, the Lutheran Confessions and moved the episcopal see from Sibiu to Birthälm ( until 1868 ). The Protestant Church of the centuries has been the People's Church of the Transylvanian Saxons and also the guardian of the German school system of the Transylvanian Saxons. 1876, the church was virtually the Nachlasswalterin the dissolved Nation University. She had on the crown land extensive goods Groves - the so-called church grounds - and hundreds of real estate in the form of churches, rectories, school buildings, town houses ( including the Brukenthal Palace in Sibiu ), the collection Brukenthal etc. This property was ( with the exception of the church buildings ) in 1946, already partly expropriated in the 1930s, by the Romanian state. In 1921 they parted Hungarian dominated Communities and constituted themselves as an independent church, which since there are two Lutheran churches in Transylvania and Romania. The Hungarian -rich church today has the name Evangelical Lutheran Church in Romania.

Since the mass emigration of most of its members after Germany since the 1970s, massively since 1990, it has developed into a diaspora church. Bishop Christoph Klein joined in 2010 to retire a. His successor as Bishop of Saxony was 27 November 2010 Reinhart Guib chosen, which was introduced as 36th bishop of the Evangelical Church AB on 3rd Sunday of Advent 2010 in his office.

Structure

The church is administratively subdivided into several districts with independent (urban) communities and the many dependent micro and small communities, the so-called Diaspora. Overall, community members are cared for in 250 villages.

Specifically, the districts are based on historical facts, but have been repeatedly modified to take account of the loss of members:

  • Sibiu
  • Sighisoara; This information can include, among other things Reener countryside, and the Nösnerland and the Diaspora communities in Bukovina
  • Kronstadt; this includes Bucharest
  • Medias
  • Millstream

Institutions

Although the Evangelical Church A. B. in Romania of members is very small, it still has a number of proprietary institutions, which puts them in a position to train its own pastor and to actively engage in interreligious dialogue and a valued contact, and internationally to be.

This includes independent church-related institutions:

  • Protestant Academy Transylvania
  • Faculty of Protestant Theology of the University of Sibiu
  • Institute for Ecumenical Research Sibiu

Direct religious institutions are:

  • Church leaves, Monthly Journal of the National Church
  • Friedrich Teutsch House in Sibiu ( containing the country's Ecclesiastical Museum of the Evangelical Church AB sowies the Central Archive )
  • Control center fortified churches (supervised restoration projects on churches ( castles ) )
  • Sibiu Bach Choir and Youth Bach Choir Kronstadt
  • Archive Honterusgemeinde to Kronstadt

The importance and attention that is given to the Evangelical Church AB is the same, in any case, not the very low number of members, which is only supported by 40 pastors in several city and diaspora communities.

Financing

The Church is funded from a variety of sources. For a voluntary church contributions are collected by the members, on the other hand revenue arising from donations, foundation payments, donations from other regional churches in Germany, on a small scale state subsidies, as well as the rental of restituted buildings and homes. In addition, many churches and castles, which are among the major attractions of Transylvania, now used for tourism and thus represent another small source of income, however, the properties of the Church, which is now again a part of their old buildings, forests and land ( often only after decades of litigation ) got refunded for the now very small communities often hard to bear. Running costs are often offset by any corresponding revenue. Also would first have to be invested in the building, since the latter are often completely neglected by decades of state ownership. So resistant new sources of funding need to be opened in order to obtain not only the return obtained property, but also the more than 250 church buildings and about 150 fortified churches as well as to manage the church forests, which the Evangelical Church AC in Romania presents big challenges.

On the other hand, exists between the city and diaspora communities an extreme gap in financial resources. The municipalities of Sibiu and Brasov are for example, by restitution in possession of a variety of real estate in millions of value and apply through their rental income than rich. These communities can be an unfolded community life and also make charity work. Similarly, the churches there are tourist magnets ( the Black Church is daily visited in the summer months, more than 2,000 people ) and can expect support in obtaining on government / EU, whereas the small diaspora communities, often with only a handful of members partly not even own church and can order rectory.

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